


Amidst the Chaos

by Kelinswriter



Series: Valentine (Universe Three) [5]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Sanvers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22658041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelinswriter/pseuds/Kelinswriter
Summary: Babies are wondeful, but babies are hard work. Especially on Valentine's Day.ForLurkz. Happy Valentine's.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer
Series: Valentine (Universe Three) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635244
Comments: 24
Kudos: 154
Collections: Secret Sanvers | A Sanvers Valentines Day Event





	Amidst the Chaos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lurkz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurkz/gifts).



_Twenty-two years,_ Maggie thought. _Twenty-two years since my family threw me away._

She could still feel the suitcase clutched in her sweaty, mitten-covered hand. Still hear the word “shame” ringing in her ears. Still feel the tears freezing to her cheeks, and the wind whistling through the trees while she sat on an icy porch and waited for her aunt to get home. 

She shook her head, doing her best to pull herself out of the dark thoughts that clutched at her on this of all days. Now wasn’t the time to be dwelling on how she’d lost everything over a fucking Hallmark holiday, though it would be easier to keep the demons at bay if she could fight them off by treating her wife to a special night. This year, there was no romantic dinner or weekend getaway to plan; no Alex, sleepy and starry-eyed after a few hours of lovemaking to anticipate.

This year, Maggie couldn’t even get off the couch. 

“KC,” Hannah said, and pointed at the TV, where a purple koala bear was singing a lullaby. 

“Yes, that’s KC,” Maggie said to the three year old, who had just destroyed the tower of multicolored blocks she’d spent the last hour building. She’d been engaged in this process for hours, save for when Eliza had wrangled her away to eat or brush her teeth or pee. Hannah’s gleeful smirk every time she toppled one looked more than a little familiar. 

“Hey, Han, how about we play the blocks in the basket game for a while?” Maggie asked, and settled deeper into the couch cushion, shifting the sleeping newborn in her arms from her right side to her left. She ached from sitting too much, but considering she was a two-legged milk machine at the moment, she couldn’t have gone far even if she’d had the energy to do so.

Hannah shook her head, her wispy red curls whirling around her like a nimbus before falling limp across her forehead, and then let out a very loud, very determined, “No.” It was the third time she’d said that word in the last fifteen minutes, and Maggie knew she had to stop letting it slide. 

“Hannah Margaret, come here, please,” Maggie said. 

Hannah’s mouth tightened in a familiar pout, which was accompanied by a petulant squint. She picked up a block, and threw it toward the basket.

“Come _here,”_ Maggie said, putting extra emphasis on the second word. 

Hannah knew that tone well enough to clamber to her feet and pad, barefoot, across the room. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt and pull-ups, with a swath of bare tummy in between, and Maggie had to resist the urge to poke her in the belly button just to make her laugh. The hardest part of parenting her adorable mini-Alex was being stern when she would have rather laughed at her antics.

“Hannah, what do we say when we don’t want to do something?” Maggie asked.

Hannah’s face screwed up in a grimace. “No, tank ew.” 

“That’s right.” Between them, Jamie let out a squeak, and Hannah looked down at her, those big brown eyes filled with a mix of curiosity and disdain. Her gaze, when she returned it to Maggie, was truculent. 

“Baby hewr?” Hannah asked, and poked Maggie, hard, in her stomach.

“Yes, Han.” Maggie extracted Hannah’s hand from the tattered remnants of what used to be a magnificent set of abs. “Baby used to be in my tummy.”

“And now baby hewr?” Hannah asked, and jabbed, with more than a little contempt, toward Jamie. Alex had many wonderful traits for Hannah to emulate, but the index finger of death was one Maggie had hoped to avoid, at least until the kid developed some semblance of impulse control.

“Yes, now baby is here.” Maggie caught Hannah’s hand and drew it away before it could take out one of Jamie’s eyes, bringing it down to rest, instead, against the soft tufts of black hair that covered Jamie’s head. “We have to be careful with Jamie, remember?”

Hannah frowned at this, but patted Jamie’s head twice with absentminded care. She brought her fingers to her mouth and sucked on them, with a thoughtful look on her face that made Maggie wonder what that devious mind was scheming. Her hair flopped down over her face, and Maggie ruffled that tangle of unruly baby curls. 

“You need a haircut,” she said, smoothing a few last flyaway hairs into place. 

“No, tank ew.” Jamie cast a longing glance at the TV. “KC sing mowr?”

“Maybe she will.” Maggie reached down to tweak Hannah’s bare belly with a soft, “Boop,” and Hannah’s face crinkled in a giggly smile. “If you play blocks in the basket game, I will make KC sing again.”

“’Kay.” Hannah threaded her way through the blocks to her favorite spot, and Maggie, reluctantly, rewound the DVR to the start of the koala’s song. She’d heard it at least fifteen times today. 

She was pretty sure before the day was out, she would hear it fifteen more.

Jamie let out a discontented yelp, her little legs kicking against her swaddling. “Hang on, little peanut,” Maggie said, and propped a pillow beneath her arm. She lifted her shirt and drew the baby’s head in, waiting for her to latch on.

Jamie looked up at her, forehead crinkling, and blinked once.

“Oh come on, kid,” Maggie said, masking her frustration in a singsong tone. “Give your Mama a freaking break, would you?”

Jamie, contented in her obstinacy, peered up at Maggie as if to say, _What the hell is the big deal, Mom?_ But gradually, it must have dawned on her that not eating was, in fact, a big deal, for her face crumpled and she began to wail. 

The sound was like a detonator setting off a hormone bomb in Maggie’s brain. Emotions surged upward in a cascading torrent: fear, disappointment, uncertainty, and finally, a dash of uselessness. “Oh, Peanut, please,” Maggie whispered, as tears, seemingly out of nowhere, sprang to her eyes. She knew all the reasons why it was happening; had watched it happen, more than once, with Alex after Hannah was born. But knowing didn’t make it any easier to manage.

Hannah, of course, decided that this was the perfect moment to start throwing blocks at the TV, apparently because KC’s song was over. 

“Mowr KC,” she bellowed. “MOWR KC.”

Jamie, in turn, flailed, her cries turning to full on, ear piercing shrieks. 

Maggie wondered if she could talk Sara into letting her hide out on the Wave Rider for a year or so.

Then she began to sob.

“Hey, babies, I’m home…oh.” Alex stood at the edge of the living room, wide-eyed as she took in the chaos. She was wearing skin-tight jeans and a navy t-shirt under a black leather jacket and her hair was slicked back and she looked sexy and beautiful and it only made Maggie cry harder.

“Okay,” Alex said, her voice frazzled. She gulped in a breath and nodded once, her face showing the same determination with which Maggie had often watched her stare down the end of the world. “Okay, we’ve got this,” she said, almost to herself, and then, to Hannah: “Hannah Banana, can you please stop yelling and throwing things at the TV?”

“Wan. KC.” Hannah cocked her arm back to hurl another block, but Alex, with her quick reflexes, was able to stop the throw. 

“Where’s Grandma?” Alex asked, hoisting Hannah into her arms. “And why is there strawberry jam in your armpit?”

“Goos-ray,” Hannah said. She grabbed a handful of Alex’s hair and yanked hard. 

“Not the hair, Han.” Alex extracted Hannah’s fingers and, before she could latch on again, flipped her around so she was hanging with her head dangling toward the floor. Alex looked at Maggie and, over Hannah’s giggles, asked, “Is Jamie refusing to nurse again?” 

Maggie nodded, and choked back another sob. “It’s just, she won’t…and Hannah’s been…and it’s…it’s…”

“I know, Babe.” Alex smiled in a way that let Maggie know she understood everything that was weighing on Maggie’s mind, and then swung Hannah around in a circle, making her laugh harder. “Let me get this goofball settled in her chair with some Cheerios and then I’ll be right over, okay?”

Maggie sucked in a breath and nodded, settling back against the couch while she tried, somehow, to soothe Jamie into silence. She closed her eyes and listened to Alex coax Hannah into washing her hands and face. Maggie heard the scrape of the high chair on the kitchen floor, and then the sound of cereal pouring onto the tray, and then Alex saying, in answer to some question of Hannah’s, “Because you’re the big sister, and your job is to take care of the little sister.” Then she returned to the living room, snatched up the remote to shut off the TV, and sat down on the edge of the coffee table, facing Maggie. “Hey, you.”

“Hi,” Maggie croaked, and sniffled back a sob. “Stay away from me, I’m pathetic.”

“You are not pathetic.” Alex leaned in and gave her a kiss that was slow, and sweet, and kind, and felt like a mercy Maggie didn’t deserve. “So if I interpreted Hannah-speak correctly, Mom is at the grocery store?”

Maggie nodded. “I don’t think she meant to be gone this long.”

“I’ll text her and see what’s up.” Alex put a hand on Jamie’s tummy and began to rub in small circles. “And this little goober is being as stubborn as her mama?”

“She’s way more stubborn than I am,” Maggie said, and Alex looked sideways and pressed her lips together. “She is!”

“Well I will say that she’s way more reluctant to latch on to a boob than you’ve ever been.” Alex wrapped her hand beneath Jamie’s head and rested her thumb against Jamie’s cheek, rubbing the soft skin next to the corner of her mouth in slow circles. Jamie was so startled by this that she stopped fussing, her mouth opening in surprise, and then, slowly, curving into a smile.

“There’s my sunshine,” Alex murmured, smiling down at Jamie, and then guided her head upward until Maggie, with a sweet feel of pleasure-pain-relief, felt her latch on. Alex watched Jamie nurse for a moment, then looked up at Maggie, her smile soft and full of love. “There. That’s better.” 

“Thank you.” Maggie wanted to dry her tears, but she was afraid to move for fear Jamie would start crying again. “Could you help me wipe my face?”

“Got it.” With her free hand, Alex reached across Maggie to the end table and snagged a tissue. She brought it to Maggie’s face and dabbed at her cheeks, then put it over Maggie’s nose and said, playfully, “Now blow.”

“Danvers,” Maggie said in warning, and then let out a little gasp as Jamie latched on with more ferocity. “She takes some convincing, but once she commits, she really commits.”

“Also just like her mama.” Alex tossed the crumpled tissue aside and reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind Maggie’s ear. “Now that our little disasters are settled, how are you?”

Maggie shrugged, and saw Alex frown. “It’s just hormones, you know that,” she said, though she could tell that Alex wasn’t buying it.

“I do. But it’s hormones, and it’s being isolated, and it’s also that today is today.” Alex slid her hand down to rest on the back of Maggie’s neck, and then looked down at Jamie. “As beautiful as this time at home with her is, I know it’s hard for you to be cooped up so much. Especially with Han in her bossy phase.”

“I’m not sure it’s a phase, _Director,”_ Maggie teased. 

Alex laughed softly. “Even I wasn’t that bad. Ask mom.”

“Gamma!” Hannah yelled as Eliza, as if on cue, walked through the kitchen door. 

“Girls, I’m so sorry,” Eliza called out. “Traffic is a nightmare right now. Something about gas stations blowing up near the airport shutting down one of the freeways?”

Maggie looked up at Alex. “Did something happen?” 

“Maybe,” Alex said, with a furtive look that told Maggie that something had definitely happened, and that something would not sit well with her. She wondered if this was a first strike by a resurgent Cadmus, or if the remaining minions of that idiot Agent Liberty were pulling more shit. And here she was, chained to her couch by her mammary glands.

Jamie made a soft cooing noise, and Maggie looked down at her, watching those little brown eyes widen in wonder. “Pretty sure God made you cute so I would feel guilty about wanting to be out there instead of here,” Maggie whispered, and felt Jamie latch down hard again. “Careful, Peanut. That needs to stay attached for future use.”

There was a clatter in the kitchen, and Alex jumped to her feet. “Mom, I’ll be right there to help,” she called out, and then leaned down to look at Maggie. “You need anything while I’m up?”

Maggie shook her head. “Your mom’s had a long day. Pour her a glass of wine and tell her not to fuss about dinner.”

“Like she’s going to listen.” Alex kissed Maggie on the top of her head. “I’ll be back in a few. You want to pump when Jamie’s done?”

“Yeah, I should,” Maggie said, and felt Alex stiffen against her. “What’s wrong?”

“You, um.” Alex stood there looking down at her, and Maggie could tell she was trying hard not to laugh. “You have strawberry jam in your hair.” 

Maggie slumped into the couch cushion, rolling her eyes. “Hannah strikes again.”

“She does.” Alex gave her a flirty grin. “You taste good, though.”

Maggie just sighed.

\------

Chaos ruled for the next hour, as it usually did during dinnertime in their household. Hannah ended up wearing as much of her dinner as she ate, which was an improvement from just six months ago, when she’d worn perhaps eighty percent of it rather than fifty. Eliza mused on the strange incident at the airport while doling out lasagna and home-made garlic bread, and Maggie watched Alex hide behind her wine glass and pretend she didn’t know exactly what her mother was fishing for. 

“Anyone ready for dessert?” Eliza said when everyone had finished eating.

“Not yet.” Maggie leaned back in her chair and surreptitiously loosened the drawstring of her sweatpants. “The amount of crunches I’m going to have to do to recover from your stay…” She smiled as she said it though, so Eliza would know just how grateful she was to have a mother-in-law who would rearrange her work schedule to be a live-in maid and nanny not just when Hannah was born, but when Jamie was too. 

“I know you two well enough to know what you’d be living on if I wasn’t here,” Eliza said, giving Maggie a fond smile. “Take out is not what you or Jamie needs. And this one…” She looked over at Hannah, who was contentedly scraping lasagna sauce off her own cheek and licking it from her fingers. “This one needs a bath.”

“No, tank ew,” Hannah said, and stuck one tomato sauce-covered finger up her nose.

“Yes, thank you,” Alex said, and lifted Hannah from her high chair in one swift movement. Her arm muscles rippled, and Maggie felt lust rip through her, as sudden and unexpected as every other damn feeling she’d had in the last three weeks. Her doctor said it was a normal part of being a post-partum mom, and that so long as her symptoms weren’t veering into depression it was best to just ride it out until the hormones calmed down. Maggie was ready to jam those reassurances right down her MD’s throat. 

“Why don’t I take care of bath time tonight,” Eliza said, pushing back from the table. She took Hannah in her arms, and Hannah, exuberant, pressed one tomato-covered hand to Eliza’s cheek. “And maybe wash my own face,” she added, dryly. She looked over at Maggie, then at Alex, saying to Hannah, “Let’s give your mommies a little quiet time.” 

“Bye, Mama,” Hannah said, waving at Maggie, and then, to Alex, “Mama has’d Jamie in tummy.”

“Yes, she did.” Alex took Hannah’s face between her hands and smooched her cheek. “I love you, Hannah Banana.” 

“Love you.” Hannah looked over at Maggie and smiled her sweetest smile. “Love mommies.”

“I love you, baby girl.” Maggie watched Eliza carry Hannah toward the guest bathroom across the hall from the nursery, those red curls glinting under the dining room lights until they faded from view. Then Maggie looked over at Alex, and shook her head, and smiled. “That kid.”

“I know.” Alex looked over at Jamie, who was sleeping in her bassinet, which they had wheeled into the dining room so they could easily keep watch while they ate. “And that kid too.”

“We’re so damn lucky,” Maggie said, and for a minute, they just looked at each other, both slightly wonderstruck by the two little humans they’d managed to create. 

Then Alex smiled and tilted her head toward the kitchen. “I wash, you dry?”

“I wash, you dry.” Maggie pushed to her feet, feeling annoyed by how much effort it took. She was going to need more than crunches to get this body back into shape. But she wasn’t up for that yet; doing a few dishes seemed like more than enough exercise for today. “Can you remind me why didn’t we get a house with a dishwasher?” 

“Because a fully landscaped backyard with space for your garden and a guest house for mom.” Alex started stacking plates while Maggie collected glasses and silverware. “I can do it all, you know.”

Maggie waved her off. “I’m sick of sitting, and I need to feel useful.”

They moved into their kitchen, with its scuffed floors and battered counters and appliances that were all on their last legs. But it was big, with plenty of options for remodeling once they got around to it, and the windowsill in front of the sink was large enough to hold Maggie’s entire collection of bonsais. Maggie stacked the dishes on the counter and started running water, while Alex returned to the dining room and wheeled Jamie’s bassinet to the edge of the kitchen. 

“Think she can stand some music?” Alex asked.

“If it’s mellow,” Maggie said, looking over at that tiny, sleepy form. She’d been an easy delivery, at least compared to Hannah, who had come roaring into the world with all her mother’s determination and not a single care for who or what might get damaged along the way. Jamie, by contrast, had been deliberate and methodical and, in the end, as gentle as was possible when it came to pushing seven pounds, six ounces of baby into the world. 

“Bathtub playlist it is.” Alex started her app, and music, soft and low, poured out of the Bluetooth speakers on either end of the kitchen. She looked over at Maggie, and smiled that devastating smile, and said, “Go on, washer. Wash.” 

Maggie turned off the water and began cleaning each item one after the other: glasses first, then plates, and then finally the silverware that had sunk to the bottom of the sink. “So, you going to tell me what happened today?” she asked as she handed off the last of the plates. 

“Oh, nothing much,” Alex said, and Maggie knew, just from the tone of her voice, that Alex was minimizing. She toweled the plate dry and put it in the cupboard just in front of her. “Just a tiny, potentially hostile extraterrestrial landing.”

“We got invaded?” Maggie yelped, and dropped the lasagna pan into the water. It splashed upward, and she found that her arms, shirt, even her face were suddenly covered in soap bubbles. “Shit.”

“You always use too much soap,” Alex said, laughing, and spun Maggie around to face her. She lifted the towel to Maggie’s face and wiped the suds first from under her eye, then her chin. “A landing craft touched down at the airport,” she said, and wiped the towel across Maggie’s nose. “And this tiny green creature with big ears and wearing what looked like monk’s robes levitated out of it. And then he started launching all the planes on the runway toward the sky.”

“Wait a minute,” Maggie said, and tried, best as she could, to keep up with this giant info dump. “You’re telling me that a little green alien landed and started tossing planes in the air?”

“But not in a bad way.” Alex ran her arm down Maggie’s hip, and then, after a slight squeeze, returned to drying the dishes. “He…she…they…wasn’t being malicious. The airlines said the planes all went up without a hitch, and they saved a ton of fuel.”

“So little dude’s an environmentalist.” Maggie pondered this for a moment, and then turned to look at Alex. “So if he’s so worried about fuel conservation, why did he turn around and blow up a couple of gas stations?”

“Well…” Alex dried a fork, bit her lip, and said, with some hesitance, “…that was Beebo.”

“WHAT?” Maggie yelled, and then snapped her head around to look at Jamie, for fear she might have woken her up. But the kid just wrinkled her forehead and pursed her mouth and sighed like she couldn’t quite figure out what all the fuss was about, and then drifted back to dreamland. 

Maggie looked over at Alex, and said, in a low hiss, “Are you telling me that Beebo showed up and I missed it?”

“I…um.” Alex became exceptionally interested in drying the tines of one specific fork. “You didn’t see the news at all?”

“I was playing _T.O.T.S._ on repeat for a pushy three year old and trying to convince an infant to not starve herself to death, so no.” Maggie pushed the lasagna pan deep into the water, leaving it to soak, and reached for the coffee pot so she could dump it out. “Beebo blew up two gas stations?”

“Beebo did cartwheels down a tarmac, stepped on two gas stations, and then tried to smack the little green guy into next week.” Alex frowned down at the spoon in her hand and added, “Also, we need to remember to get gas before we park at the airport the next time we go out of town.”

“That’s not going to happen again for like, another fifteen years, so focus, Babe,” Maggie said. “The important question is, did you get to shoot at anything, and if so, why wasn’t I there?”

“Because…” Alex looked pointedly at Jamie, admitting, in the process, that there was, in fact, shooting. “But as it turns out, the little green guy just disintegrated all our bullets with one flick of his hand.”

“Well that’s…terrifying.” Maggie heard Jamie let out a soft cry and turned, watching over her until she settled. Then she looked back at Alex, frowning. “So why aren’t we in the middle of a war right now? Did they make friends?”

“Apparently.” Alex turned to Maggie, shrugging. “It was pretty cute, actually. Beebo was stomping everything in sight and then Baby Yoda punched him in the nose, and…” 

Maggie had just started scrubbing the lasagna pan, but now she let it drop into the water, and stepped back from the sink, and turned to face Alex. “Baby Yoda is real?”

“I mean, it looks like him…and…he lifted all those planes…” Alex raised her shoulders and tilted her head in that way she had when she wasn’t sure what was going on but was just trying to roll with it. “All I know is, he and Beebo went off together, we’re not sure where, and the pod just sort of…sank.”

“Sank like Luke’s X-Wing?” Maggie all but shouted, and then looked, again, at Jamie, who continued to sleep as safely and soundly as Baby Yoda in his own crib. 

“Babe.” Alex turned to look at her, her brow crinkling. “You know this isn’t actually Baby Yoda, right?”

“If Beebo is real, then why not Baby Yoda too?” Maggie waved her soap-covered hands in dismissal and then returned to scrubbing the lasagna pan, putting all her frustrated energy into scraping it clean. “So just how much shooting did you get to do before the bullets all evaporated?”

“Not much.” Alex extracted the pan from Maggie’s grip and rinsed it off. “You probably wouldn’t have gotten called in on it.”

“The airport…” Maggie grated, “is my jurisdiction.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Babe,” Alex said, and toweled the pan dry. “By the way, you still have strawberry jam in your hair.”

Maggie sighed again.

\------------

They finished cleaning up the kitchen around the same time that Eliza finished Hannah’s bath. “Why don’t you go soak in the tub while I read Han her bedtime story,” Alex suggested, and Maggie looked over at Jamie, one eyebrow arched. 

“You pumped, she’s sleeping, it’s good.” Alex wrapped her arms around Maggie’s waist and pulled her close. “It’s okay to take a little time for you, Babe.”

And so Maggie retreated to their master bath, which, unlike their kitchen, had come with top of the line everything: new shower, vanities, tile floor, and a fresh coat of creamy white paint. The centerpiece of the room was a Jacuzzi tub for two, and she and Alex had spent the night they put in an offer on the house discussing, in great detail, all the different ways they could enjoy it. But with first Hannah and now Jamie keeping them busy, the evenings spent soaking in each other’s arms were few and far between. 

But it was still one of Maggie’s favorite features of their little house in the not-quite-suburbs of National City. They were up their eyeballs in debt to pay for it, but between Maggie finishing off her student loans and Eliza giving them much of their furniture when she began cleaning out the Midvale house in preparation for moving to something smaller, they were making it work. And they were happy; even with losing Gertrude to cancer right after Maggie got pregnant, they were so damn happy.

Yet Maggie couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a price to be paid. Maybe it was her father’s voice in her ear, telling her that she would never be accepted as she was in the world. Maybe it was just this sense that she wasn’t quite getting her arms around this Mom thing, at least not as well as Alex had after Hannah. Maybe it was just the fucking hormones making her paranoid that ten weeks away from her job was going to delay her chance to make Lieutenant next year or get her supplanted by one of the young hotshots working their way up in Science Division.

Maybe she just needed to sleep.

She leaned back in the tub and let her thoughts drift, the soft music in the background soothing her just enough that for a little while, she was able to let go of everything tugging at her. By the time she climbed out of the water, the anxieties that had been spinning in her brain all day were quieter, at least, than they’d been when Alex first walked through the door. Valentine’s Day had brought its usual baggage, and not being able to make the day special for Alex made that sting more than usual. But they were together, and their little family was safe, and Beebo and Baby Yoda were apparently off on a date and not rampaging through the streets. So whatever came next, she could deal.

She did not expect dealing with a bedroom full of roses and lit candles and even a couple of cheesy Valentine’s Day balloons.

“Hey,” Alex said as Maggie stood there, peering around in confusion. Alex was standing near the doorway, wearing a red silk robe and not much else, and her hair was down and tousled around her face. 

“Alex.” Maggie looked around in wonder. “How did you do all this?”

“I stashed some of it in the garage, and mom picked up the rest this afternoon.” Alex walked over to Maggie, champagne flute in hand. “Happy Valentine’s, Babe.” She offered to Maggie and said, “I know it’s just sparkling cider, but go with it.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” Maggie said, and took a sip of the cider. “It’s my job to make Valentine’s Day special for you.”

“It’s our job to make it special for each other.” Alex put her hands on Maggie’s waist, tugging gently at the belt of her tattered white terrycloth robe. “I can’t give you the whole night off from new mom duty, but I can give you a few hours.”

“The girls are with Eliza in the guest house?” Maggie asked.

Alex nodded. “And Kara is on backup duty, though I’m pretty sure she would prefer to not be within earshot of us.” She laughed softly, adding, “Plus, I suspect she and Lena might be having their own romantic evening, complete with dinner flown in from Paris.”

“Did Lena fly it in, or did Kara?” Maggie asked with a smirk. 

“Supergirl vs. private jet. The eternal conundrum.” Alex tugged at the belt of Maggie’s robe and then leaned in to nuzzle Maggie’s neck. “Do you think we could maybe stop talking about my sister?”

“Gladly.” Maggie set her glass on the nearest dresser and wrapped her arms around Alex’s shoulders, feeling the strong muscle beneath the thin robe. She slid her hands up so she could caress the fine hairs at the nape of Alex’s neck. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, and drew Alex down into a kiss. 

They didn’t go straight for the bed; Alex put on one of their favorite songs, a Sara Bareilles tune they had slow danced to at their wedding, and they danced to it again, barefoot this time, in circles across their bedroom carpet. Alex pressed her forehead to Maggie’s and caressed her fingertips up and down Maggie’s back. 

“Whatever you feel up to,” Alex whispered. “If you’re still sore, or you don’t want something, or…”

“I’ll tell you.” Maggie slid her hands beneath the folds of Alex’s robe, finding the curve of her hip, then the small of her back. “I love you so much.” 

“I’m so glad I get to be in love with you,” Alex said, and lifted her hands to frame Maggie’s face. “I’m so glad I get to spend every day of the year with you, but especially this day.” 

She kissed Maggie then, and pushed the tattered terrycloth off her shoulders, and then eased her toward the bed until she was lying on her back and Alex, naked now, was leaning over her. Alex stroked Maggie’s skin, caressing every curve and hollow within reach, while her mouth traced soft patterns on Maggie’s chest and neck and face. She nuzzled her nose into Maggie’s hair and said, “What, no jam anymore?” and Maggie giggled and caught at Alex’s hip, tugging her downward until they were lying face to face, breast to breast, hips to hips. Alex’s weight pressed Maggie deeper into the mattress, but it didn’t feel like a burden. It felt like freedom.

She wrapped her arms around Alex, fingers tangling in her hair, and drew her in closer. “I want you.” 

“You have me,” Alex said, and there were very few words after that.

Afterward, they lay in bed, now both in their comfy robes, and ate strawberries and whipped cream. In past years, they would have put the food to more creative uses, but Maggie was content to simply feed the strawberries to Alex or let them be fed to her, with an occasional pause for kissing any stray bits of whipped cream away. And slowly, their conversation turned from the mundane details of their life to something deeper; to all the fears that had been rolling around in Maggie’s head like bowling pins, scattered and spinning after a strike.

“The thing is, I can take down a 300 pound alien with a well-placed knee and my wits, but this mom thing…” Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know how you did it, Alex. I would come home after work and the house would be spotless and dinner was ready to go, and you’d just be sitting there, so contented with Hannah. I just feel like a mess constantly, even with Eliza’s help.”

“Well, there was only Hannah, and she couldn’t destroy anything but diapers yet, so that helped a lot,” Alex pointed out. “And as for the rest…” She looked over at Maggie, biting her lip. “Okay, I’ll admit it. More than once, I would look around at the chaos in the late afternoon and then text Kara, begging her to come clean up in return for pot stickers and pizza.” 

“You bribed your sister to be our maid?” Maggie asked, and then laughed at the thought of Kara whirling around the house, tidying up the piles of discarded clothes and unwashed dishes and hauling out bags of dirty diapers. 

“And cook, sometimes, after Mom went back to Midvale.” Alex gave Maggie a sheepish look. “I’m surprised you never figured it out. I kept waiting for you to show up early and bust me.” 

“I guess I was just too blindly in love.” Alex started laughing at that, and Maggie shut her up by popping a strawberry in her mouth. Then she kissed her, nibbling half the strawberry away while Alex gnawed at the other. They lay there for a moment, enjoying the quiet, and Maggie felt contentment, so elusive on this of all days, begin to wrap itself around her once again. The world was messy and complicated, but she had Alex, and they had their girls, and the chaos that threatened at every turn made what they had all the sweeter. It wasn’t neat or easy; it was just life.

And she was so glad that, out of all the ones she could have had, she had this one.

They heard the kitchen door open, and Alex sat up and pulled the gaping folds of her blue fleece robe closed until she was modestly covered. She slid out of bed and tied the belt of her robe, smiling down at Maggie. “Time for Jamie’s midnight feeding.”

“Is Eliza bringing Hannah back too?” Maggie asked. 

“I’ll go get her after we have Jamie settled,” Alex said, sliding her feet into a pair of well-worn Uggs. “After covering for us tonight, Mom deserves better than being awakened at four thirty a.m. by our little demon tugging on her hair.”

“We really do have to work on that,” Maggie said, and sank back in the pillows, savoring the last moments of calm before reality descended. She ate the last strawberry, finished her cider, and blew out the candles on the nightstand one by one. She had just finished arranging pillows in the correct configuration for nursing when Alex returned, holding Jamie in her arms. She was wrapped in a white and blue striped flannel blanket, and her head was covered in a yellow knit hat. One glance at her, and Maggie felt her heart melt. She had a feeling it was going to be doing that every day for the rest of her life.

“Hey, Peanut,” Maggie said, and opened her arms so Alex could deposit Jamie into them. She looked up at Alex and smiled. “Have I mentioned that we’re really lucky?”

“We really are. Also, you have something on your bottom lip, so let me fix that.” Alex leaned down and kissed Maggie, sucking a bit of stray whipped cream away, and then drew back and tugged Jamie’s little hat a bit tighter onto her head. “You need anything?”

Maggie shook her head. “Kiss Han for me, and tell Eliza thanks and good night.”

“Will do.” Alex smoothed a hand over Jamie’s brow, and then looked at Maggie again, tears shining in her eyes. “I love you, Maggie Sawyer.” 

“And I love you, Alex Danvers.” Maggie tilted her head back and they kissed again, their mouths moving with the same passion that had carried them through wars and invasions and a couple apocalypses and even the actual end of the world. Fire had brought them together, and it would keep them together, no matter how hard the world might try to put it out. 

Alex caressed Maggie’s cheek one last time and then slowly let go. “Be back in a few minutes.”

“We’ll be here.” Maggie leaned back and brought Jamie to her breast, her eyes closing as she listened to Alex walk through their house and then return, some minutes later, with a half-awake Hannah in tow. The kid was already trying to negotiate her way into staying up when she should be fast asleep, and Maggie was sure they would pay for their daughter’s disrupted night tomorrow. For the moment, she savored the sleepy chatter drifting through the walls from the next room and then the quiet thump of a door closing. 

“Is Jamie cooperating this time?” Alex asked as she returned, drawing their bedroom door most of the way shut. She walked from dresser to dresser, blowing out candles, and then climbed into bed. 

“She is,” Maggie said, shifting against the pillows to find a more comfortable position. Alex sat up and helped her rearrange them, and then slid down flat, rolling on her side. She stretched one arm across Maggie’s legs and nuzzled her hip, looking up at her in the soft light of the one bedside lamp. “You’re so beautiful when you’re nursing her.”

“You’re so beautiful, period,” Maggie said. 

“Aw, Babe.” Alex smiled up at her, and then froze, her senses on alert, at the sound of Hannah’s bedroom door creaking open. “We’re about to get a visitor.” 

“We are,” Maggie said, and pretended not to notice when a pair of big brown eyes peered around their bedroom door, scoping out the odds of making it across the intervening space without being busted. Hannah decided to go for it, and Alex quaked with silent giggles as they both watched her creep across to the bed and then crawl under the covers, clambering over Alex’s legs until she was solidly wedged between them. 

“Hannah Banana,” Alex said, trying her damnedest to sound stern. “You know you’re supposed to sleep in your own bed like a big girl.”

“Monssers ousside,” Hannah said with a confident air. “Big sisser take care of lilel sisser.” 

“That’s right,” Maggie said, and grinned down at Alex, murmuring, “Set yourself up for that one.” 

“I did.” Alex wrinkled her nose at Maggie, and then looked over at Hannah with a bemused air. “Mama and I have some practice with protecting little girls from monsters. You and Jamie will both be okay.”

“Alex,” Maggie said softly, and waited for Alex to look up at her. “Let her stay.”

Alex smiled up at Maggie, and then pushed up far enough that she could kiss Maggie’s hand. She squeezed in close so they were all tangled together and pressed her index finger to the tip of Hannah’s nose. 

“It’s Mama’s night,” she said. “And Mama says you get to stay.”

“Yay, Mama!” Hannah exclaimed, and Jamie flailed against her swaddling at the sound. 

“Yay, Mama,” Alex said, and caught at Jamie’s feet, holding those little toes between her hand until they stilled. She smiled up at Maggie, and then wrapped her arm over Hannah and Maggie until she was holding them both. Then she snuggled her face against Hannah’s, and kissed her everywhere she could reach, and closed her eyes.

Maggie took a moment to drink it all in: the newborn in her arms, the toddler wriggling against her leg as she settled into sleep, the wife holding and protecting them all. Then she thought about that scared little girl twenty-two years ago, standing on the side of the road with her suitcase, so afraid she would never find a family again. 

“Yay, Mama,” she whispered, and turned out the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the Sara Bareilles song [Orpheus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurkz/pseuds/Lurkz). And yes, that's the song they dance to.


End file.
